Prescription for Regional Growth Could Be a Bitter Pill to Swallow

May 1st, 2008
In the ballroom of the UW Husky Union Building yesterday, at a daylong “Reality Check” event put on by the Urban Land Institute, about 300 development professionals, public officials, and land-use and neighborhood activists stood around 30 enormous tables, each with a giant map of the Puget Sound region. A box on each table contained LEGOs—each yellow block represented 2,000 new residents, and each red block represented 2,000 new jobs—and pieces of colored yarn, which represented new roads and

Plan calls for tracking lobbyists – Seattle Times

March 17th, 2008
Plan calls for tracking lobbyists Seattle Times, United States - Mar 17, 2008 "Most of the consulting is done by people not hired to be lobbyists, like the school superintendent, executive director of Sound Transit, staff of Office of ...

Don't keep government lobbying under wraps – Seattle Post Intelligencer

March 16th, 2008
Don't keep government lobbying under wraps Seattle Post Intelligencer - Mar 16, 2008 The ordinance studiously ignores paid lobbying by employees and consultants of the city and of state and local entities such as Metro, Sound Transit, ...

Port of Seattle: The battle for public records continues

March 13th, 2008
[Front paged: NM. Slight title change to indicate this is a Port of Seattle issue] Openness and accountability coming to the Port of Seattle... Yeah right! So, here we go again, On January 28th, 2008 I requested, formally, from the Port of Seattle, expense account records of Ceo, Tay Yoshitani. I received the information the next day via email. Most of the 11 PDF documents they sent me were all the same but had different title numbers. So, I had to ask again and explain to them what they had done wrong and wait for them to send the new ...

Bill on port contracts wins praise

March 13th, 2008
The Legislature passed a measure this year to increase oversight of ports in the state following an audit that was critical of how the Port of Seattle did business.

Chummy culture at port costs taxpayers

March 2nd, 2008
When port employees, consultants and contractors work for years in the trenches of a complicated project, it's natural to become friendly. But a recent state audit found that chumminess sometimes got in the way of good business practices.

Olympia’s feared watchdog: Brian Sonntag

March 2nd, 2008
He's got even more authority now, thanks to a voter-approved initiative that provides for evaluations of public-agency performance. The state auditor is effecting change inside institutions like the Port of Seattle.

Who’s Buying Your City Council Members?

February 26th, 2008
Incredibly, there's currently no way for citizens to know who's being paid to lobby their elected officials. Although county, state, and federal lobbyists are required to register with those jurisdictions, lobbyists that seek to influence city legislation have for decades operated in complete darkness. Tomorrow afternoon at 2:00, the City Council's Culture, Civil Rights, Health and Personnel Committee will take up long-pending legislation that would remedy that oversight, requiring lobbyists to register with the city's ethics and elections commission. The legislation, sponsored by council member Nick Licata, would require paid lobbyists to file quarterly reports saying who they ...

Did port contracts go to favorites?

February 18th, 2008
A state audit reinforces perceptions that the Port of Seattle hasn't offered a level playing field in awarding small contracts, with opportunity to steer business to certain companies.

Taping of Executive Sessions (background from Attorney General's Office)

February 14th, 2008
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has produced a background memo on the proposal to tape local government executive sessions (HB 3292). From the AGO:
The Problem The Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) allows elected officials to hold closed-door discussions regarding specific issues such as pending litigation, personnel matters and real estate transactions. However, the act requires that all votes be held in a public session. According to the State Auditor, from Jan. 1, 2004 to Nov. 13, 2007, there were 460 instances where executive sessions were an issue. These issues have varied from illegal executive sessions to improper notice. • ...
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